Paint Chips

An Escape from Fantasy

If you think about it, we live in a very fictitious world. Especially in a place like Ohio where we like to dine at exotic restaurants to make us forget we are in…Columbus, Ohio. Like Cheeseburger in Paradise, for instance. Enter this ambient-overload diner complete with fake palm trees, recorded tunes and syrup-berry margaritas spinning ravenously in a tub full of ice and artificial colors. “Tonight’s special features a soy burger with mango salsa, macadamia nuts with just a hint of rosemary and a side of edamame with humus  dip.” It’s just peas, okay people. Outside, we enjoy the picturesque view of I-270. Ahhh, paradise.

Back to reality, we hop in our cars and swing around the parking lot, while the little “Fresh Laundry” tree swings from the rearview mirror. At home, we light a rainforest-scented Yankee candle, turn on the gas fireplace and nestle up on the pleather recliner with a new fiction novel from James Patterson or Stephen King or John Grisham, perhaps? Tired of reading, we might turn on a sitcom of a fat man with a hot wife or a reality show featuring Brett Michaels sooo head over heals in love (for the 4^th time) that he’s rockin’ yet another installment on cable television for all the world to witness.

After signing up for Fantasy Football on Yahoo and surfing the virtual world that is the WWW-Dot, this hypothetical Friday evening caps off with a little Wii bowling and possibly Rock Band where we receive clamoring from friends like, “You should try out for American Idol!” Finally, 27 text messages later, we climb into bed, turn on the CD player that echoes sounds of ocean waves crashing on the shoreline and dream about clowns riding wolves into the sunset. Okay, that’s just me. But, you get the idea.

For shit’s sake people, I think it’s time we take a vacation! 

Where do you like to visit to escape from fantasy and enter reality?

Gravy

I loved coming home for Thanksgiving dinner, like a squirrel stocking up for a long winter of cafeteria food. After three months of Ramen noodles, I couldn’t wait for the Turkey dinner. Good to get home. Good to get home-cooked meals. I’d imagine this was the last supper before I’d be sent back to the slammer – one filled with an incessant line of students, hairnets and predictable menu items. Yesterday’s meatloaf, meet tomorrow’s lasagna.

I stuffed my trunk and pockets with Tupperware Turkey, aluminum wrapped pumpkin pie, and countless baggies of leftovers. And as I backed out one year, readying myself for the next few months of Sloppy Joes and wondering how I’ll make the 60-mile trek with a food coma, I notice this squirrel. He’s stuffing his trunk and pockets with leftover nuts. So I say to myself, “Self, what separates us from the animals? Have we really evolved that much? Are we any better than the simple mind of the rodent squirrel!?”

Then the front door slams, and my mom yells, “You forgot the gravy, sweetie!” I laugh a sinister laugh to myself, one of those half “Mwuahaha’s” and relax knowing that the Homo sapiens, are in fact, still ahead in the race. Still on top of the food chain. Because I’m pretty sure there’s one thing the squirrels won’t be enjoying this winter: Gravy.

Gravy. It’s what separates us from them.

All Hallows' Evolution

Halloween has many phases, and the trick-or-treat cycle seems to represent life in general.

EXUBERANCE

When you’re a kid, you live for it. You want the coolest costume and love dressing up. Candy is an amazing perk and the promise of 4 weeks of digging around in your pillow sack for one more Reese’s creates a building giddiness that starts in August. You have a consummate zest for life and the sugar kick just helps add a little zing.

AWKWARDNESS

When you’re a teenager, things get kinda weird. Do I dress up again? Am I too tall? Is 17 years too old? Is it still cool to go as Aquaman or will the football players find out and beat my ass tomorrow? The candy isn’t so much of a big deal but you still crave the thrill of wading through the moonlight in anonymity.

INEBRIATION

College. The candy is replaced with stale kegs, Hairy buff and Cherry bombs. It’s all about being silly stupid and getting drunk. Costumes are big again, but in a different sense. The guys want to make you laugh. The girls want to make you look. The entire holiday (and every holiday for that matter, including the newly popular “National Talk Like a Pirate Day) is just an excuse to get all twisted without your normal clothes on.

INDUCTION

When you graduate and finally get your own place, but you don’t have kids, you can’t help but feel a bit uncomfortable. Is it creepier if the new guy in the neighborhood dresses up and hands out candy or just sits there in jeans and distributes Laffy Taffy? I don’t know? I’m still trying to figure it out. What is certain is that you have once chance to establish yourself as a worthy house to these kids. Decide to save a few bucks and hand out Necco Wafers instead of Starbursts and you’ll be lumped in with the Dentists of the neighborhood.

INFANCY

When you get your first kid, everything changes. You immediately lose any creepiness and you’re back in the game. You get to dress up again without feeling stupid and you get to go trick-or-treating again without getting your ass kicked. Plus, you can snake a few pieces of candy from your kids during the early stages, claiming their “teeth aren’t ready yet.” My Dad tried that for 8 years.

EXIT

After the kids have come and gone, the fun’s over. Your teeth fall out, you can’t hear the doorbell anymore and for some reason you get genuinely upset when kids simply walk through your yard. The trick-or-treating ain’t so sweet anymore and, yup, you have officially gone dark. You’re that house that turns off the lights and locks the doors from 5-9 p.m. or whenever Wheel of Fortune ends. You mumble to yourself about how you had to walk three miles in a homemade costume for a mere slice of apple, but these kids today don’t know wha…

Second-class Citizens

Make no mistake: middle-class is different than second class. I grew up middle class and it was great, but being second-class is never so apparent than when you’re boarding a flight. First, obviously, they board the first-class passengers¾which you initially think doesn’t make much sense because they are at the front of the plane and you’ll just have to walk through them, trying not to knock over their fresh-squeezed Guava juices with your ratty carry-on. But, then, you actually witness their doublewide leather seats and realize they could fit a Border collie under the seat in front of them and still have room to stretch their legs. The handicapped, elderly and diabetic even have to wait for these people!

Then, they finally get to the “boarding the rest of you jokers” portion of the announcements and here come the cattle. Hoards of families and honeymooners and first-time business travelers sheepishly shuffle past these elite citizens (like a scene out of City Slickers) with a wide range of expressions. Some nervous. Some apologetic. Some embarrassed. Most annoyed.

So as my number is called, it’s finally my turn to proceed down the aisle, all the while cursing my parents for not sending me Ivy League, cursing myself for wasting all my savings on drum sets and scanning the royalty while looking for something that distinguishes these privileged people from myself. I expect designer glasses, tailored suits, folded up Wall Street Journals and Blue Tooth earpieces. Nope. I see the Funny sections of the newspapers, James Patterson novels and a guy that’s actually wearing a T-shirt! One lady was even reading the effin’ SkyMall magazine! “They’re just like us?” I marvel, and I can’t understand why they get to sip on free martinis while I’m sandwiched between two ladies while elbow wrestling for 5 hours. One woman that forgoes “hello” and skips straight to, “Have you found Jesus, young man?” and another lady whose obligatory question, “Where are you from?” is immediately followed with, “Well, I moved out West when I was seven and then….”

Perfect. Seriously. No movie on a five-hour flight?

Once the cattle are settled and the first-class content, they swing that stupid curtain shut. That stupid, blue curtain that is the proverbial slam on your hopes and dreams and regrets. Any thoughts of a comfortable flight or a decent meal are instantly forgotten. And don’t expect any smiles from the flight attendants on our side of the curtain. No, no. Not for the peasant folk and their cold ham sandwiches and diet Cokes.

You know the only vindication from this whole scenario; the one thing that makes me smile; the one observation that should make us all feel like we’re on a level-playing field with the first-classers? Babies. Babies don’t give a shit what row they’re sitting in¾they’ll cry and kick just the same. And, we all are rolling the dice when it comes to the seating chart. So, as I sit with my cramping legs in row 49 F, I can smile knowing that the dude in 1A may be eating sushi off an Asian model’s stomach, but sitting right behind him in 2A is a two-year old¾with an earache.

And, all the sudden, not spending the extra two hundred bucks on first class seems like a pretty good move.

America the Arrogant?

I bought a world map the other day and it really put things in perspective for me.

All of my adult life, the world has been telling me that I’m a self-righteous, pompous and snooty-nosed because I live in Columbus, Ohio which happens to be a city in the superpower, The United States of America. My geographical location supposedly dictates my personality. You know, like saying everyone in Seattle is depressed. Everyone in Asia is skinny. Everyone in Kentucky is missing their front teeth and has once considered dating their sister. Like most stereotypes, the world as generalized all Americans into one classification: Arrogant.

Now, all of my adult life, I have refuted such accusations. I’m a nice enough guy that gives a couple bucks to the occasional bum, opens a door for an elderly woman and even offers half of the armrest at the theater. In fact, most of my friends and family members possess these same altruistic values. So, who are these assholes in America that everyone hates? And, why should my Ohio drivers’ license warrant such dirty looks on foreign soil?

Sure, I get that we’re the richest country in the world. But, we give billions of dollars away to people that train their 5-year olds to gun us down. Yes, we waste a lot of food while “millions of children are literally dying for something to eat.” True, we consume more natural resources than any two continents combined, but we’ve all got recycling bins underneath our cubicles now for our Fiji water bottles!

These things were never enough to convince me that we, Americans, loved ourselves so much and disregarded the rest of the world. That was, until I bought a world atlas map and noticed something I hadn’t ever picked up on before: North America is the first country you see on the map. If the map were a book, and you scanned from left to right as most people do when they read (or is that some of the American ego coming out?), the good ole US of A would be the very first word. It’s the furthest to the left; we want you to see us first.

Now, if that’s not enough to convince you of our motives, consider this one, widely accepted fact: the Earth is round. So essentially, the map could have started anywhere¾Europe could be on the left and we could be on the right when you look at the flat-world view. You catch my continental drift? Because we took the best spot on the map, you cannot think of this planet without first picturing the US, then maybe Africa’s distinct shape jutting out after that. Watch any movie where NASA or potential Armageddon is involved and this same arrangement is displayed from the satellite view: America on the left, everybody else on the right. You’ll never see a globe shot without at least some semblance of our country surrounded by ocean blue.

We managed to take a round, rotating object like the Earth and forever make it a flat world that seems to be sponsored by us. U.S. It’s US vs. Them. That’s why everybody’s pissed.

Come to think of it, elementary textbooks these days probably claim that when Pangaea first broke apart, the US was first to go solo and the rest of the world followed.

I get it now. I don’t buy it at all (I love this country), but I get it. The rest of the world says, “Keep your fancy hamburgers and your organic grocery stores. Keep your designer shoes and your pampered poodles. Keep your digital cable channels and your PhD’s. We just want a shot at the left side of the map you bastards.”

Screw it. I’d swap sides of the map.